American / Russian missiles

[fairkatrina]

Is no one else worried that we're heading straight into another cold war???? It seems the only thing the US has learnt from the past is to do things in reverse order, as we've already had the new Vietnam...

[Clanad]

Excuse me, but it was the U.S. presence in Europe following WWII, the implementation of missiles, the sharing of nuclear power with Britain and Reagan's threat of developing a missile defense shield that are the reasons your not reading this in Cyrillic. Has anyone noticed that from the earliest development of the current missile shield, Bush offered to share the technology with Putin and co-develop the shield. The main concern is now missiles (love the way Brits call them miseye-les) launched by rogue states... Iran fits that bill...
I'll now retreat to my 1950ish bomb shelter and wait for the incoming... from our U.K. friends!

[Neilzulu1]

wtf ??

[fairkatrina]

Funny, but what I understood of the Cold War was that the US couldn't stand the idea of a country using a different form of government than them (a bit like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea.....) so they threatened to blow them off the face of the planet; the only problem with that being that the other country could reciprocate with equal strength, hence the arms race, the space race and the whole bloody mess in Vietnam. If the US started lining up missiles along UK borders, I'd be nervous, so no wonder the Russians aren't happy!

[lightoftruth]

in terms of nations keeping there sovereignty..the cold war was the best period of time the modern world has ever been through! The worlds superpowers were indeed armed with nuclear weapons...but neither would use them..nor would they try and increase there borders for fear of upsetting the fragile balance.

Since the collapse of the ussr, the american state has been rampantly invading, subjugating politically and forcing the entire world to lick there boot!

[Lonnie]

If it hadn't been for America, we'd either be speaking German or Russian now.

Short of licking GWs rectum, like our PM is always doing, I think we should be supporting America.

I read an article by a French journalist, who said, if you want to understand why we (the French) dislike the British so much, its because you saved us, twice.

I wonder, could the same be true of America?.

As far as another Cold War is concerned, its Putin who is trying to engineer it, not America.

[kwicky]

Like the last cold war Britain took the brunt of the last cold war and thanks to Blair and company are likely to be in the firing line of any future conflict. Why don't we admit it, we are now a third world power so get rid of all our missile tracking systems from Ftylingdales.

[tigerlily11]

The USA puts it missiles in Europe and Russia then points its own missiles at Europe instead of the USA.
That kind of makes me nervous.

[Llamatron]

The world is run by dangerous fools.

[tiny e.a]

All this 'America won the war for us' business is truely tiresome. We owe America absolutely nothing, they came into the war about three years too late and even then it was because Germany declared war on them not because America joined the allies. It was thanks to Russia's efforts in the war, distracting German interest to the East that we lasted as long as we did, so if you people really think we 'owe' someone, perhaps we owe Russia. (I'm not suggesting Russia is better than America, I'm just trying to point out that it's not as simple as America=good, Russia-bad.)

Politically the United States do nothing unless they believe it will have a long term benefit to them, so where ever they stick their missiles the only people who will benifit from it will be them.

Sorry fairkatrina, I know I haven't really answered your question.

[tiny e.a]

And in reference to the suggestion that if it wasn't for America we could be speaking Russian by now, Have I missed an attempted invasion of Britain by Russia? or even an actual war between America and Russia that saved us from the Russians? No.

[kwicky]

Tigerlilly has a reason to be nervous when siting USA missiles in their country. As Russia has proved just make sure in any future conflict the first strike is always against the messenger. Someone suggested if Iran was the problem the likely first attack would be Israel so why not put the missiles there.

[shaneystar2]

The Americans always win the war ..at least in films and I am in complete agreement with tiny e.a..
We have paid our debt to them but they still want to ride roughshod over the planet .They won't even sign up to Kyoto which says it all.
The minute Bush was elected I remember saying to my husband ...he's a warmonger and we have absolute proof of that with Iraq. Now he wants to play silly games with the Russians .The sooner this buffoon is out of the White House the better .Lets hope the American people have the sense to elect somebody with more moderate views next time round .
I wash tins and recycle newspapers while George Bush wages war and stamps his global footprint everywhere Dreadful man.

[Clanad]

Tsk, Tsk shaneystar2 bad side if the bed this morning? We seem to forget that the 'war monger' moved only after an event colloquially known as "9/11". As far as Iraq is concerned, I've often wondered what the world would have thought of Bush, had he not done anything about Iraq, even considering the numerous U.N. resolutions, the absolute knowledge that Hussein had used chemical weapons against his own people, did have a known nuclear development program along with every major and minor intelligence agencies from Russian to U.K. and everything in between proclaiming his ownership of WMD and then have Saddam plant a big one in downtown Tel Aviv, or worse, terrorists carrying one into the subway system of London. The world would then have literally crucified the man... damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Don't get me started on Kyoto... China and India exempt? You've gotta be kidding! If you want to witness a modern day Great Depression, just impose those kinds of restrictions on the countries that produce the world's goods. Even now, there's absolutely no consensus on man's contribution to so-called global warming. That debate is just beginning to rage here in the U.S. with thousands of scientists signing statements standing against the rush to judgement about emissions.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

To end this rant, I suggest tiny e.a. Google up The Lend Lease Act... Churchill (God bless him!) came with hat in hand to tell Roosevelt that Britain was broke. Roosevelt pulled every string he could and got the Lend Lease Act in place in record time. This, with the mood of America still being somber remembering the carnage of the 'Great war' only 20 years earlier. Billions of dollars worth of war goods at no cost. Roosevelt said "...Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose 400 or 500 feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don't say to him before that operation, "Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it." What is the transaction that goes on? I don't want $15 - I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. All right. If it goes through the fire all right, intact, without any damage to it, he gives it back to me and thanks me very much for the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up - holes in it - during the fire; we don't have to have too much formality about it, but I say to him, "I was glad to lend you that hose; I see I can't use it any more, it's all smashed up." He says, "How many feet of it were there?" I tell him, "There were 150 feet of it." He says, "All right, I will replace it." Now, if I get a nice garden hose back, I am in pretty good shape."

Billions of dollars worth of goods to not only England but also the other Allies. Thank you, U.K. for the repayment (2% interest over 50 years with several years defferred due to inability to pay)in 2006.
Then Google the Marshall Plan... and still we're the bad guys...

Contd.

[Lonnie]

Sorry Clanad, I haven't waited for you to finish.

Just to add to my earlier post, I never said the Americans won the war for us, but without them, we surely would have lost.

[Clanad]

End

The USSR no longer exists because of Ronald Reagan's and Margaret Thatcher's (God bless her!) staunch support of "Star Wars" (after being bribed to come to the table),and even today Bush offers Putin the chance to participate in the technology... but I'm repeating myself... the revisionist's love to play fast and loose with history, in my opinion.

Lastly, Britain's Trident class nuclear missile submarine fleet is supplied by the U.S. through an agreement going back to the aforesaid Reagan/Thatcher alliance...

[Clanad]

Thanks, Lonnie... I don't think the U.S. has ever believed they won the War (First or Second) alone... but their are graves of hundreds of thousands of 'Yanks' scattered all over Europe and that's the only land the U.S. has ever desired owning...

[shaneystar2]

Clanad I have great respect for your point of view but had the Japs not bombed Pearl Harbour America would not have entered the war .Roosevelt prevaricated for ages in spite of Churchill wanting him to be on side .And don't forget, the lend lease was stopped immediately the minute peace was declared .I have every admiration for the Americans and without them we would have been up the creek without a paddle ..but that was over 60 years ago ...This is now and Bush is playing a dangerous game . I for one will be glad to see the back of him . He has dragged us into a war the majority of people in this country did not want. Now we are being threatened with nuclear missiles on our doorstep .. not yours .As for Mrs Thatcher ; anyone who consorts with a genocidal maniac like Pinochet is not in my book of people to be admired .
.
It only needs one fool to press the button and all our debate is in vain !

[tiny e.a]

I'm sorry clanad, half way through the rather tedious garden hose analagy it all started sounded like blah blah blah to me.

I appreciate that during the war we did need USAs money but in the long term they have actually profited from that loan,and I accept we needed their assistance but it doesn't mean we should be forever at their heels, thanking them with all our hearts and accepting and supporting every political move they make.

And with regards to George Bush only waging war after the events of 9/11, the two are completely different subjects. It was not Iraq who was responsible for the incident.

Look, I'm not trying to start a fight with you, America is your homeland and of course you should defend it, but please try and do so without being so patronising towards the Brits. I don't need to google the Lend Lease Act or the Marshal Plan thankyou, I am already quite knowledgable on them. And yes, thank you America for assisting our regeneration but don't pretend it was a complete act of genorosity, it also geve America economic power throughout Western Europe, their aim to dominate Western Europe was, in essence, no different to Russia's in Eastern Europe. (Although I do concede that American help was alot more useful to the West than was the help of the Soviet in the East).